You may not be on the ledge...but you're feeling a deep weight on your chest that your words can never fully explain. You hide it behind a joke or a funny, weird phrase. For some reason, you just don't have that fire in you anymore. You've lost your "why". You feel useless, purposeless, worthless.

All you want to do is lie in your bed and try to close your eyes hard enough to make it all go away. The thought of letting down those close to you is weighing hard on your chest but somehow it's not enough to get you up like it used to. On the flip side, some days you do go out and move about so that they don't worry about you...no matter where you are, your mind is still left in your bed.

Lately it's been hard for you to talk about this feeling. You don't want to burden those loved ones around you with yet ANOTHER problem...especially when you know how busy they already are. It's even harder to talk to them when they just tell you you're "overreacting" or "being dramatic" about your feelings. At that point it just feels worse.

You've really done it all: therapy, medication, socializing, coping skills, and so much more. Maybe people don't understand that you're trying because you don't share much about it--truthfully, it's not their business anyways. But at this time in your life, you are exhausted. Like said before, your fire is gone.

No matter what the situation is, you're riddled with the phrase "Just get up and go do something." You wish it was that easy. Though the thought runs through your mind, you are so physically and mentally tired that the will to get up and go out is gone. So you just spend yet another day locked in your room.

All you want to do is have someone hear that you need them.

People don't understand why you feel this way, but they also aren't with you when you're lying there at 3 AM after waking up from a nightmare, crying, and staring at the locked door to make sure it stays locked. They aren't with you when your anxiety smashes in your face and you have to talk yourself down from a full blown anxiety attack.

They aren't with you when you have to soak in the messages you get of people calling you ugly and fat almost constantly. They aren't with you when you get a sudden panic in your body because the person you just passed in the hallway resembles people who've hurt and scared you. They aren't with you when you're crying in the middle of the afternoon, just wanting someone to hug you and tell you they love you.

You're scared to reach out AGAIN about all of this because you can't be called an attention seeker AGAIN. The courage you have to gather to pick up the phone or send a message sometimes takes an entire day, and by that time the person on the other line has heard it come out of your mouth one time too many...it feels like they stopped caring.

Sometimes you feel out of control. Because of this you've just tried numbing your pain with every single unhealthy coping mechanism imaginable. You can't even talk about your feelings honestly anymore and instead bury them deep within yourself and sometimes let them free within the lines of the paper. You feel numb.

Other people think this is a sign you've gotten better. You know it's not. Only you know what it really means.

You're fighting a hard, long fight that sometimes just ends with you laying in bed all day. Other people around you can't tell what you're fighting because at the end of a long few months of having to physically and mentally hide scars and pain, you've gotten too good at hiding true feelings. But maybe now is the time to talk.

...and I know this because I am you.